


Momentary

by NanakiBH



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: First Meetings, Love at First Sight, M/M, Melancholy, Palpable Despair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7707499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like a picture waiting to be drawn by someone else's hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Momentary

**Author's Note:**

> While thinking about what would come next in DR3, this is what I thought of. Decided it was a scene worth sharing even if it ends up retconned.
> 
> All I listened to was Kano's version of [Setsuna Plus](http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm21329273) while writing.

The halls of the clinic were so quiet.

It was very different from the lively halls of Hope's Peak; those halls that were usually brimming with hopeful smiles and laughter. Lately, though, a shadow had been creeping onto campus, filling the sky with dark clouds that cast the laughter into silence. It crept in quietly and settled itself comfortably inside the students, acting like it belonged there, acting like it had been there all along.

Komaeda wanted to expel that familiar darkness from his classmates. He was the only one who could, he thought. He was the only one who could see it with clarity. Slowly, it was taking shape, and he feared that it would find a way to speak to them, to whisper sweet, convincing words that would lure them further inside of its void. If they spent too long inside alone without any light, without hearing the hopeful voices of their fellow classmates, the darkness would surely change them.

Without any light, without hope... That was despair.

But, well, now he was suspended. His own fault more or less, he figured. To help them, he was going to have to find another path, and there was only one path he knew of that could reliably carry him through anything.

If Hope's Peak really wanted to test his luck, then he would let them. The narrow clinic hallway was cold and quiet, but if his feet walked it, then even its black and white tiled floor would be transformed into the necessary path.

As he wordlessly followed the nurse who was leading him to the examination area, Komaeda slowed his feet, slowly, slowly, one half-inch at a time until she didn't even realize that he had disappeared behind her. He would catch up eventually, but he was curious about what else Hope's Peak was studying. There were other students whose luck had granted them a seat in the classroom, but he'd never had the pleasure of meeting them. He couldn't help but wonder if there was anyone else who shared his extraordinary brand of luck.

His eyes glanced at each nameplate he passed until he was met with an open door. Inside, a single small cot. A boy with gauze wrapped around his head sat staring out the bright window. He didn't seem to take notice of Komaeda – or, if he did, he didn't acknowledge his presence.

There was something sad and fascinating about that image. Komaeda glanced once back down the hall to see whether the nurse had noticed his absence before he slipped into the room. Even though he knew it could get him in trouble, he chose to believe in his feeling of fascination and closed the door behind him.

The boy's head didn't even turn for the sound of the door. As Komaeda approached, he noticed how oddly vacant the other boy's eyes were, the way they seemed to stare at nothing. As if drawn by strings, the boy finally turned to look at him, but there was nothing there. He simply stared without emotion. He was moving and breathing, but he looked lifeless.

For a terrible instant, Komaeda found him very relatable.

“Hello there,” he began quietly, standing at his side, not feeling presumptuous enough to take a seat. “I was just passing through and you looked like you could use some company.”

Fascinated. Yes, that was what he was.

Looking at him felt like staring at a blank canvas or an empty vase or a disassembled puzzle waiting for its pieces. Komaeda felt dangerously fascinated by such a sense of opportunity. Within those blank eyes, there were millions of possibilities, and Komaeda's pounding heart told him that he might be able to find the thing he was looking for inside of them.

The silence didn't answer him back.

“I'm sorry. I should have introduced myself,” Komaeda apologized, smiling softly. “I'm no one special, but the school has an interest in my luck. I decided to let them have a closer look at it. What are you here for?”

The silent boy went back to staring out the window. Even though there were clouds, the struggling light of the sun filled up his eyes and made them momentarily sparkle.

“Hope,” he said. He closed his eyes, like the light was too bright for him.

The way he said that word, plainly, without any special feeling, so ordinarily, like it was just a word... It was like he didn't even know what it meant. When he heard Yukizome-sensei speak of it, Komaeda was certain that he felt and understood the meaning of the word 'hope', so it felt strange in comparison to hear someone else utter it with such disinterest.

Still, it made him shiver.

“Hope? Is that your talent?” Komaeda asked.

The boy looked down, looked up, nodded mutely.

Hope...

Komaeda had the feeling he wasn't speaking to a person. Their communication could barely be called mutual. What he stood before was a void, much like the darkness that was threatening to swallow up his classmates, except the void before him was neither darkness nor light. It was just a void; innocent, without anything at all. A name had been assigned to it – 'hope' – but it was still waiting to be filled in with anyone's definition of the word.

Komaeda didn't know what to do except stare into it. His heart was still pounding with excitement because there he was, standing in front of exactly the thing he had been looking for, and yet he felt like he could cry, feeling a certainty that his crude hands were unsuited to shape it. If he touched him, he would leave behind dirty fingerprints, staining the pure surface where someone else's beautiful meaning of hope was meant to be painted.

But even that terrible image appealed to him. He felt disgusted for thinking so.

What he wanted most was a thing he would never be able to hold. He knew that.

He knew that, but...

“We need you,” he said, his words dishonest, betraying his selfish feelings.

Maybe that boy, hope, was just as desperate as he was to serve a purpose. For a second, something other than the sun sparkled in those vacant eyes. It made Komaeda want to reach out and touch him.

Before his fingers could reach his pale cheek, the door opened and the very flustered nurse ushered him out without giving him the time to say goodbye. As he was pushed away, Komaeda looked back and offered that boy a glimpse at his ugly feelings. And after the door had been closed, as he was once again following the nurse down the hallway, he felt regret.

Even if he touched him, even if the hope he placed inside him would have been just a reflection of what he selfishly desired, Komaeda was far more frightened of what someone else's hands were going to put there instead.


End file.
